Sunday Serenity: There’s No Such Thing As the Perfect Time

Just one week ago I officially launched Inspired 2 Higher magazine to the public, and it almost didn’t happen.

Initially I was supposed to launch on January 1, 2017.

My grandmother passed right before the new year, so I didn’t feel it would be appropriate or in the best time to be promoting anything as we were still planning her memorial service. My mother was grieving heavily for the loss of her mother and the timing was just off.

The new launch date was to be February 1, 2017.

Before that date could approach I found out one of my loved ones was diagnosed with cancer and may only have six months to live if they didn’t have immediate surgery. It was also the same type of cancer my grandmother had just died from. They decided to refuse it and rest on faith. This troubled me. My heart was heavy, my spirit was disturbed and my thoughts became scattered.

Okay, so I scrapped my Valentine’s and Black History Month articles and planned to launch March 1, 2017.

This had thrown me completely off! I trashed all those new year articles as well as what I was initially prepared for, I seemed to be unprepared for now. I wasn’t in the best place mentally, but I have to keep my strong face! The last couple years had just seemed to be rough, as I imagined myself to be so much further ahead with all my goals than I was, but I never calculated in betrayal, death, sickness, heartbreak nor depression into my timeline. Life just happens without our permission.

I reached out to a fellow writer I looked up to. I sent him an article to inspect. I needed just a little reassure and confidence booster. He’d unknowingly given me those before and I just needed to feel that within in myself. I was seeking something encouraging. I didn’t have the high and happy spirit you would’ve expected me to have right before I launched the magazine I’d been wanting to start for the past eight years! He told me he already read the article, would give me some feedback and editing before the first of March.

Unfortunately, I didn’t hear back from him and it almost made me want to stop looking up to him. He gave me his word and failed to have the courtesy to tell me he wasn’t going to do that. His failure to be courteous still didn’t take away from his body of work or how good he was at what he did, so I wouldn’t be that petty, but I was disappointed.

April 1, 2017 rolled around.

I had just made a post on my public Facebook page that I had an announcement to make. The announcement was going to be the launch of this magazine. I looked back on some of the events that had taken place in my life in the past several years and felt like I would have been better off if I started this when I first had the vision for this, instead of being so scared and hesitant. So much had happened since then, I didn’t feel like I was the person to be empowering anyone else.

I then remembered a phone call I received from a friend a few weeks prior. He reminded me if he or anyone else waited for the perfect time to do anything, nothing would ever happen, including him getting married. What would we ever get accomplished?

I chose to let all the things I had kept bottled up inside of me, drive me to do this – to cross everything off that bucket list I wrote for this year and give that loved one reasons to be proud of me if his time really was limited.

Instead of focusing on the things that were going wrong, I tunneled my vision on everything that could still go right! I wasn’t as prepared as I felt I needed to be, but that’s what faith is all about! I call this part of my life leaping!

What I learned – It’s difficult to rely on others.

A weakness to work on – Being hesitant when I already have a full plan!

A strength I noticed – I can do something well all on my own!

Sometimes our biggest obstacle is failing to believe in our ability.

-Debrinah S. Dorsey

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.